Cohan, in her hospital gown, shimmied to Beyonce's "Get Me Bodied" along with member of the surgical team that would be operating on her.
A dance party is the last thing you would expect to happen before a double mastectomy. But for Cohan, this was also therapy.
"I was more nervous about how the flash mob was going to go than how the surgery was going to go," she said.
Cohan is not your typical patient. She is a San Francisco gynecologist who specializes in treating pregnant women with HIV, so when she asked, the team at Mt. Zion Hospital at UCSF was happy to oblige.
But Cohan didn't want to party to end there. She asked others to send her videos of them dancing to Beyonce so she could watch them during her recovery. Her story has spread quickly, even Queen B herself posted about it on her Facebook page, writing, "Deborah, you are awesome!"
The Fendel family, her neighbors in Berkeley, was more than happy to dance up a storm to show their support.
"I kept thinking if I were in her place would I be dancing and enthusiastic and smiling all the time and having such amazing intentions and I don't know that I would and I just found her attitude to be so incredibly inspiring," neighbor Tamar Fendel said.
Neighbor Yossi Fendel danced by himself at his office.
"But Deb was pro-active and said, 'you know, what you could do is you can dance. You can participate in this flash mob that I'm organizing,' so that's a nice feeling,'" Yossi said.
Now Dr. Cohan is getting a nice feeling as the videos and well wishes pour in from around the country. Released Wednesday, she's now recuperating from her home and says she's doing great.
